


La Douleur Éprise

by Charname



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Forced Kissing of a Sibling, Forced Voyeurism of a Sibling, Fuck Or Die, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Psychological Distress, Rape/Non-con Elements, Semi-Clothed Sex, The Final Problem, sherrinford, threats toward children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:33:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9661538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charname/pseuds/Charname
Summary: During The Final Problem, Eurus conducts a more thorough study of Sherlock’s responses to being loved.His reaction to a verbal declaration was highly informative. She expects further experimentation involving physical acts to be at least as revealing. With consideration for the preferences of her subject, she allows Sherlock to decide which of his two companions he would like to make love to.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for [this prompt over at the kink meme.](http://sherlockbbc-fic.dreamwidth.org/75973.html?thread=260534469#cmt260534469) Please read the tags and take note of the warnings. I want to state explicitly that I wasn’t trying to narratively kinkshame Sherlock at any point during the story. I enjoy the added whump that came from the aspects that could be interpreted that way and wrote in accordance with my own preferences. Also, Sherlock is not necessarily meant to be taken as a 100% reliable narrator here with his perceptions and all. I wanted to leave some room for interpretation.

Sherlock forgets how to comprehend English.

Mycroft stands perfectly still. His only hint of movement a slow, but ever increasing, pinching of his eyes. 

John makes a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a gasp.

“What?” Sherlock asks. Numbness has spread through his face and malforms the first consonant. 

“Love. The words, the acts. Is it different for you?”

Mycroft pulls himself into coherence first. “Eurus, this is enough. You have no idea what you’re asking. Remember –”

The lights turn red as Eurus interrupts him, and he fades into silence. “Remember there’s a plane in the sky, and it’s not going to land.”

John exhales again in a burst of sound. He straightens, and looks not at Sherlock, but Mycroft, who holds his gaze for a second before looking away.

“Sister dearest,” Mycroft begins again in a tone Sherlock has often hated when directed at him. “This is counterproductive. You know our brother. He –”

“I’m getting to know our brother. As will you: intimately. It’s your fault for keeping us apart for so long.” She shrugs. “And the rest.”

“Eurus, I –”

“Do you remember the rabbit and its tongue? That was practice for you.”

Mycroft’s jaw snaps shut. His gaze skitters over to Sherlock, then back to the screen. He opens his mouth again.

John speaks before he can. “Do you actually understand what you’re asking for? Sex and love are not interchangeable.”

“No matter. He does love you.”

John responds with an impressively derisive snort before Sherlock can mentally process a reasonable reaction. “Not like that.”

“And he was always all over Mycroft when he was young.”

“Not like that,” Mycroft choruses.

“You don’t –” John purses his lips and splays his hands before straightening again. “He’s your brother. That’s not something family –”

“Are you trying to suggest that any of this is representative of what normal family members do? We are not normal.” The on-screen image of her twists around in her chair. “But yes, family. That’s so important, isn’t it? So dear to you, sometimes.”

She pushes a button and the screen switches from her to a view of a sofa. It’s an unremarkable beige, or part of it is; the rest is a still wet-looking deep red.

More interesting than blood-absorption analysis is the sound clawing its way out of John’s throat. Like a wounded animal; too close to that night at the aquarium. It grows for a moment to fill the room. Sherlock is frozen, wanting to move toward John but incapable. 

“No,” Sherlock hears form from the wail. “No.”

John moves. He collapses against the table in the centre of the room, shaking the three glasses on it. Mycroft steps back, then forward toward him, then stops.

Sherlock fails to do anything, even as he can feel his muscles burning with need.

John grips the edge of the table, fingers white against the wood. 

“What did you do? What did you do to her?” The words are barely intelligible. 

There are seconds of silence before Eurus’ voice returns.

“The child? Nothing yet. She’s fine.”

A man appears on the screen, right arm bloody even above the elbow, left supporting the weight of Rosie, cuddled to his shoulder and apparently asleep. He moves to sit on the sofa, centred in the camera’s view.

“The people you left her with are dead, but that’s what happens when you hand off children.”

John releases his grip on the table.

“Of course, she doesn’t have to stay that way. Boredom is dangerous, you know. I thought I might remove her thumbs first, but then, there are so many options.”

“So if Sherlock doesn’t” John pauses for just long enough for it to be noticeable, “have sex with one of us, you start mutilating children.”

“Mutilating this child,” Eurus clarifies.

Sherlock’s stomach flips.

John looks up at him. He’s furious, and Sherlock fears some of it is directed at him. It’s not entirely undeserved. 

“You made a vow,” John whispers, or mouths, or maybe he only looks at Sherlock, whose ears are ringing and mind may be filling in blanks. A loosened grasp on reality is the best option at the moment.

“Come on, Sherlock,” he hears as Eurus switches the screen back to herself. “Blood or water, who do you love best now?”

Sherlock glances at Mycroft before following his unbroken gaze to John.

It’s not a question. It shouldn’t be, but he has caused John so much suffering already. Mycroft may be his brother, but he has allowed this situation to occur. If he could save one of them any pain, it would be John. But this… other factors complicate the equation.

He tries to think of something, anything, to say. Some vocalisation that will make this bearable.

Eurus flips the screen back to Moriarty’s face, his voice piercing “tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock,” through the room. Sherlock can’t think. He identifies one factor in his lightheadedness and forces himself to inhale. He doesn’t do more.

John stiffens, takes his own breath, and steps toward him. 

“Obviously it can’t be Mycroft,” he says looking past Sherlock, maybe at a camera; Sherlock now has the situational awareness of a flatworm. 

“John, I –” he tries to speak. It comes out garbled.

John’s eyes snap up to his.

“I’m sorry,” he tries again.

Something in John’s eyes shifts; his jaw tightens. He doesn’t say anything. He brings his hands up to unzip his jacket.

Before Sherlock can open his mouth again to make things worse, Eurus speaks. 

“You have to say it, Sherlock. Say “I choose,” then say his name.”

“I choose John.” Sherlock can feel his heartbeat in his face. 

“Covenant then. You got bigger, but you haven’t changed at all.” She leans back. “There are three glasses on the table. Each of you takes one and drinks the contents entirely, and maybe at least one little girl survives.”

Sherlock thinks for a moment that all of this was just about seeing who he’d choose, that he won’t be forced to act on his selection, only to live the rest of his life knowing that John knew he would have, and knowing that John would have in turn. Then he realizes that no, there’s no way Eurus would make this that easy, would force Sherlock to confront that yes, if his daughter were threatened, John would provide this sacrifice for her, and let that lie. The water has to contain something to help them along, as it were. She’d have to have known that neither of his choices would feel any desire for him. She’d have questioned his ability to… perform.

John, once again, is the first to move. He drops his jacket to the floor, steps back toward the table, picks up a glass, and swallows the clear fluid inside without hesitation or comment. He slams it back on the table and looks to Sherlock, face blank.

Sherlock’s hand moves forward of its own accord. It’s a pointless movement. He’s not stepping forward; he’s not near enough to grab a glass. 

He’s reaching toward John.

He changes the gesture before it becomes too obvious. He raises the hand to cover his mouth. He’s sweating, the skin of his upper lip clammy against his fingers. 

John looks away.

Sherlock steps forward, focusing on the glasses. He lifts one to his mouth. The liquid isn’t cool or warm; it’s settled, like water left out. There is an unfamiliar taste to it, but no discoloration or sediment at the bottom of the glass. He hears the shake of his hand as he places it back on the table, rattling through the bottom of the glass. 

He doesn’t look at John. He pulls at the bottom of his left shirt cuff.

“All of you,” Eurus’ voice rings out. 

He hears Mycroft’s footsteps. His brother grabs the remaining glass and gulps its contents down loudly and dramatically. Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock sees him spread his arms and give a little bow before slamming the glass back beside the others.

Sherlock can’t look up from his shirt cuff. It won’t come undone. 

“I’ll go stand in the corner, shall I?” Mycroft declares. 

“Back to the wall,” Eurus directs, “eyes on them. You will watch. If you’re a good boy, I’ll give the girl another minute on the phone.”

Sherlock hears Mycroft take a slow breath and stomp off to the wall. He hears the smack of palms slapped back against the sturdy construction, followed by a slightly louder breath.

His damnable shirt cuff won’t come undone. He can’t fit the button through its hole. He could just rip the thread, but then they’d know, all of them. It was perfectly manageable when he’d put it on this morning. 

He hears harsh, heavy breathing.

It’s not his brother’s. It’s not John’s. It’s not coming through the speakers.

“Sherlock,” he hears, and in his peripheral vision sees John reaching for his wrist, and sod it. Damn it. Fuck it!

He grabs the button between his thumb and forefinger and pulls. 

It doesn’t tear.

He tugs again, pulling his arms apart and digging a nail underneath the button, against the thread.

It takes two more tugs during which he knows they’re all staring at him before the thread breaks. 

The button clatters from his bloodless fingers, rolling under the table. He looks up.

John is looking at the bared flesh of his wrist in undisguised horror.

John is being so stupid; there’s not even anything to see there.

“Just,” John says, “get it over quickly.” 

Sherlock’s heart, somehow, manages to break even further.

John looks him in the eye, finally, and stretches his mouth into something like a smile. “Get through it. Repress it. Keep surviving.”

Sherlock shifts his mouth into a shape that must be just as convincing, tries to think of something appropriate to say in return, and nods.

John’s hands, rather than turning to the buttons of his shirt, move to his belt, undoing and unwinding it. Sherlock can’t look away.

It’s not something he’s never seen before. Back when they had lived together there had been a variety of states of undress and undressing. Sherlock has never been particularly concerned where he places volatile chemicals, for instance, because he knows he isn’t going to bump into them and spill them all across himself. So he has – for various reasons – seen John remove his trousers before, sometimes even with frantic urgency. He has seen John remove them because of him.

He has never seen John remove his trousers while knowing that he was about to – that they were about to – touch each other, to have sex. Not in waking life, at least.

He hasn’t – it hasn’t – progressed far enough for him to have enough data to say, but he thinks that is, and will be, the worst part of this. That he has wanted this. That he has fantasised about something almost exactly like this. 

Sherlock has spent far longer than he would ever admit aloud thinking about touching John. He has thought about John coming to him, affection and desire in his eyes, lightening the lines of his face, but he has also, more frequently recently, thought about being pushed back, proving apologies in the shape of bruises left on his skin, being treated the way he deserves and sating a mutual need that would have to be enough for him. He has thought about touching John and having John touch him with plausible denial of attraction. He has thought about how freeing it would be to be forced to act on his desire, to be able to have John, if only once, and have John hate someone else for it. 

It feels like a new type of betrayal. For all he knows he might have said something, done something, to make Eurus suspect. She may consider this another gift. He may be even more responsible for this than he can know. 

He is going to touch John with hands that have touched himself to this fantasy.

He wishes he didn’t know he was going to get hard. He wishes he could blame it, in his own mind, on whatever drug he’s just ingested. 

It’s not as bad as it could be. He’s fully aware of the difference between erotic fantasy and reality. He knows he’s never actually wished for this. But still, it’s worse than it could have been too.

It’s no comfort that none of his fantasies had involved half of his living family watching them.

He watches John hold his trousers closed for a moment, zip and buttons undone, caught in a second of hesitation, before dropping them, and considers that he likely hadn’t needed to tear open his shirt cuff. They might not have to take any clothing off but the most necessary. 

John hooks his thumbs under the waistband of his pants and pushes them down altogether. 

Time all but stops. 

Sherlock’s attention is caught. His gaze finds soft flesh and darker hair and stays there.

John is flaccid, of course. There is no desire from him, and he has only just taken whatever was in the drink. He’s large, even soft, but Sherlock had known that. He’s not going to fit inside Sherlock without significant preparation, and Sherlock won’t put anything inside John, not like this when all he can do is try to minimise John’s discomfort with the situation. 

He’s staring, but then, he’s never had more of an excuse.

The room is entirely silent. He can’t even hear his own breathing anymore. He wants, even now, and he loathes himself for it. His skin is electrified with anticipation. He is going to take John’s cock in hand, to make him hard and make him come.

In the worst possible conditions.

“How do you want to do this?” John asks, his tone and the tilt of his hip deceptively casual.

“I don’t,” Sherlock starts, and god, he needs to tear his eyes away. He needs to make eye contact for this.

He finds himself swallowing, blinks, and drags his gaze up to John’s face. The lines around his eyes are tight and pained, even though he’s clearly trying to hold his face blank. John’s jaw has time to twitch before Sherlock finds the will to start again.

“I don’t know. Some way that doesn’t show my _sister_ ,” he emphasises the word because that’s what someone should do in this situation, and maybe if he tries to be just a little more human it will help John, “any more than necessary.” 

“You know I wouldn’t if there were any other way, but Rosie –”

“For Rosie,” Sherlock cuts him off.

The table would be slightly too high for John to lean over, and too low for Sherlock to bend over.

John looks to the wall beside him, starts to take a step toward it, and stops, closing his eyes.

Sherlock realizes that he hadn’t thought this through; that in John’s hurry to get this over with, he’d trapped his ankles in his pants and trousers. Now he’ll have to bend over and undo his shoes to slip them off and free his feet enough to pass through his clothes, and that will be… well. Mycroft will get quite a view. So will Eurus’ cameras.

There is another option. Sherlock finds it far preferable. 

He steps into John’s personal space and drops to his knees.

John starts to step back.

Sherlock tells himself that if he lets John complete the movement, he’ll trip. He brings his hand up to the back of John’s calf to catch him.

He can feel the muscle twitch under his palm as John makes a choked-off noise.

“Shh,” he directs, a marked failure even amongst his usual attempts to calm and comfort. 

John stops trying to move.

Sherlock moves his hands to John’s laces and unties them, quick and sure. He slips his fingers between fabric and skin and helps John slip out of his clothes, first left foot then right. 

When Sherlock looks straight ahead, he can see that John’s cock has started to respond. He can smell his burgeoning arousal.

It stirs as he focuses on is, and he lets himself pretend, just for a moment, that the situation is different. 

Then he looks up, and his moment of fantasy makes reality sting all the worse.

John will not meet his eyes.

Sherlock thought he was done with wanting to die. But no, of course John, who likes women, who would never want something like this from someone like Sherlock even in the best conditions, can’t bear to look at him now while his body responds to drugs rather than proximity.

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to deal with this. Confused and frightened, he looks to his brother for guidance. It does, actually, provide some small comfort, though not of the kind he had been searching for. 

Mycroft’s back is to the wall. His palms are braced flat against it. He is facing them with a look of rapt attention on his face. It’s an expression Sherlock knows all too well; the one Mycroft wears when he has decided to forego an interaction or lecture and retreat to his mind palace. He’s there, but he’s not present. Mycroft, at least, isn’t really watching this. He’s given them as much privacy as he can.

Sherlock considers the cameras he can see in the room. If one of them positions himself on his hands and knees, and the other positions himself over him, and if they are permitted to leave their shirts on, that will provide some small measure of privacy. Shirt-tails and positioning could block the most intimate parts of their contact from view.

It’s only fair that his skin be the most displayed. He can cover John’s body with his own. Sherlock is the one Eurus is interested in seeing anyway.

“I –” he starts, and in an instant John’s eyes flick down to his. It’s like an electrical shock. It might take no more than a second, but the moment, with him kneeling on the hard ground looking up at John, stretches out for aeons. 

Then John’s eyes widen, and he looks away. 

Sherlock exhales, and only realizes he’s close enough for John to feel it when he twitches in response. 

He rocks back and pushes himself to his feet.

He ignores the pounding of his heart, the feeling of pain when John tilts away as he leans in to whisper to him. It is no more than he deserves.

“If you want to kneel and brace yourself against the wall by the corner, I can move between your thighs. It’s the least invasive. She said sex, not penetration. It qualifies.”

“Is that –” John starts, then stops.

“Yes.” John nods. Sherlock would wonder what he’d been about to say, but it’s better to not.

“ _Just get through this,_ ” he thinks to himself. He watches as John turns around and moves to the wall. Sherlock allows himself a moment of appreciation for the artistry of the form before him. The shift of muscles in legs – and higher – illustrates strength. The expanse of skin, pale from lack of sun, seems to glow in Sherlock’s vision under industrial lighting that should make any subject appear washed-out and sickly.

He watches John kneel before the wall, far enough to place his palms on the ground, close enough that a shift of his knees will make it easier to lean on it for support.

“Here I thought you’d want to try bending him over the table. That is the cliché, isn’t it?”

Eurus’ voice inspires Sherlock to glance back at the one piece of furniture in the room. It is far too low for him, but – his mind supplies before he can stop himself – almost the perfect height for Mycroft to brace himself over. Maybe he has surprised her; there’s something one of them, at least, doesn’t fully understand at play here.

“Mycroft, move. You’re in the way.” It’s almost a whine.

Sherlock glances over to Mycroft, who doesn’t respond.

Drug free, Mycroft can place himself in a hypnotic trance that deadens him to the world and provides escape from it, Sherlock knows. It’s not as effective as intoxicants, but it is Mycroft’s preferred method for getting away. It says something about Eurus’ familiarity with Mycroft if she hasn’t noticed that he’s done so yet.

“My–” she starts again, voice harsher, before breaking off with an inhalation. “No. That’s completely unacceptable.” The cadence is a perfect imitation of his – their – mother’s.

“John,” Eurus barks. “Stand up. You’re going to kiss him until he responds.”

Sherlock’s attention snaps back to John.

He twists to look over, face blank, then pushes himself up from his knees. Most of the muscles in his back are still concealed, but his thighs… Sherlock lets himself observe – not enjoy – the view.

Sherlock sees John grit his teeth and move, with military tread, over to Mycroft. He tilts his face out of Sherlock’s view as he approaches and toward a visible camera before turning to Mycroft, slamming both his palms against the man’s chest to push him full against the wall, then moving his right hand up to pull Mycroft’s head down by the back of the neck. John surges up, pressing their lips together, and Sherlock can’t look away.

He hears his brother’s surprised grunt; he sees him flex his fingers against the wall, but he can’t shift his focus from their joined mouths. It’s not a chaste touch of lips. It’s not how Sherlock has seen John kiss others in the past. It’s an attack. It’s a point being made, but Sherlock can’t determine which. Sherlock sees his brother’s eyes widen further – at what, he doesn’t, can’t, know – before John pulls back. There’s a moment of silence – Sherlock suspects that all of them have stopped breathing – before Eurus’ voice rings out.

“I told you to watch. It’s not a complicated demand, even for you.”

“I was staring directly at them!” Mycroft protests.

“We all know what you were doing. Stop it. If you try anything like that again, you won’t like what happens.” Sherlock remembers those exact words coming out of his mother’s mouth time after time. It doesn’t exactly stoke his ardor. 

Mycroft straightens with a “Yes. Fine.” and glares at John as though he has anything to do with any of this. Of them, John is most the victim. Sherlock needs to remember that. He needs to do what he can to protect, not get carried away.

John turns and starts to walk back around the table to the corner Sherlock had directed him to when Eurus tells him to stop.

“You’ve found a good spot. Stay there,” Eurus says, and John, after a moment of rigidity, kneels again near the wall.

Mycroft moves to step to the side, away from John and apparently into a better place because Eurus doesn’t comment.

So much for the illusion of privacy.

Sherlock doesn’t move.

They will not be within reach of Mycroft, but they will be too close. Any distance would be too close. 

Eurus switches the stream back to Moriarty’s face, and the tick-tocking begins again: a cadence designed to distract.

Sherlock considers the situation. He needs to remove his pants and trousers. Not just for symmetry with John’s state, but because restricting his movement won’t do him any favours.

He starts with his shoes, kneeling to untie his laces because he can’t remove his pants over them, and pulls his socks off as well; the last thing he needs is to slide across the floor.

John has twisted to watch him. Sherlock experiences the curious sensation of all eyes on him as he unbuttons his trousers under duress. 

He drops them without ceremony, then pushes his pants down his thighs and slips out of them as well.

He feels colder than he’d anticipated.

He ignores the discomfort as he hits the edge of the table, striding too quickly over to John, who turns back to the wall at his approach. He kneels behind him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice low. He’d been trying to whisper but hadn’t quite managed. 

“Don’t be,” John says simply. “It’s not your fault.”

Apparently his decision to forgive Sherlock everything is continuing indefinitely. 

Sherlock is grateful for it, or he knows he should be. 

He’s more than half hard, and John is on his hands and knees before him, and he has plausible deniability. He thinks again that for all he knows, Eurus might be trying to give him another gift.

But then, for all he knows, Eurus might be trying to take everything from him. He doesn’t know anything. He’s worthless.

He places his hand on the outside of John’s thigh and draws it upward. It’s a calming motion. It’s a caress he has wanted to provide for years.

Muscle twitches under his touch, but John doesn’t move. 

He stares at his hand as it moves past thigh and on to the curve of the hip, the meat of John’s arse, pale and tense. He’s groping now, isn’t he? There’s no excuse for that, no plausible reason for him to need to touch John there. He pretends he hasn’t hesitated over the flesh, and draws his hand farther up John’s back to grasp the bottom hem of his shirt and pull it down. It conceals only as far as the top of the curve of his arse; Sherlock finds himself admiring the partial glimpse as even more tantalizing. He, at least, won’t have difficulty fulfilling his part of Eurus’ demand. 

“I’ll make it as quick as I can,” he says, and almost manages a whisper this time. 

John gives a grunt of acknowledgement.

“You have to –” Sherlock finds that his mouth has gone dry. He swallows. It doesn’t help. “You have to pull your legs closer together.”

John responds in action, pressing his knees together and lifting his arse up higher.

It’s workable. Sherlock can spread his legs and position himself behind John and press into the slit created by his thighs. He’ll have nothing to ease the friction of his thrusts, but he won’t need it. He’s going to orgasm so quickly that it will be embarrassing, and he’s going to maintain that he’d intended to. 

Against all sense, he looks to his brother for guidance. Mycroft has lowered himself into a ball, sitting with his knees drawn up, back against the wall. He’s staring resolutely at John’s upper half, but Sherlock can tell he’s being noted in the peripheral. Fair enough, even Mycroft is out of control in this situation. There is no one to turn to.

He looks back to John and shifts closer. He longs to run his hands over John’s back, or wrap them around him to pull him closer, but he can’t. 

He will do no more than what was demanded. He will take no pleasure that can’t be excused. He will do everything he can to remain forgivable. 

He positions his calves on either side of John’s and shuffles closer. 

He’s more than hard enough to press his flesh between John’s thighs. When he does, it takes everything he has not to collapse. 

He hears the echo of a moan, and it may have come from his mouth.

John tenses and clenches his thighs around Sherlock, and he almost cries from the pleasure of it. The soft skin of John’s inner thighs slides around Sherlock’s cock until he’s pressed abdomen to arse against him, deep enough that he imagines he’s almost all the way through, though he can’t feel any hint of cold air against his glans. 

He pulls away, slightly, before the urge for closer contact drives him forward again, so hard that John has to brace himself, left palm skidding on the floor. 

Sherlock takes what might, if examined too closely, be the excuse to get even closer to him. 

He leans down over John to wrap his hand momentarily around a wrist, and whispers, “Move forward. Lean against the wall. It’ll be easier.”

John obeys. He doesn’t question it; he shuffles forward, placing an interesting pressure on Sherlock’s cock before it slips free, and presses his palms against the wall, rather than the floor. It leaves him kneeling, all the better for Sherlock to press against him. It’s not taking advantage, it’s making this easier on them both. Sherlock will come more quickly this way. That is a kindness. 

Sherlock shuffles up behind John again, slotting their bodies together and pressing himself into the soft warmth of John’s thighs. In this position he does pass farther through, far enough to press the head of his cock against what he knows to be John’s testicles.

He is breathing in harsh gasps, but the choked moan is not his own.

It’s more of a twitch than a thrust, but John moves back against him.

Sherlock holds very still and tries not to have a heart attack. His hips begin to move again without his conscious thought. They have no lube, but his foreskin provides enough protection to avoid noticeable discomfort. He likes the idea that he could leave John’s thighs rubbed raw, that he could leave some mark to prove that he had, even for a moment, even under duress, had that kind of claim upon John.

But he won’t. He can’t. John would hate it.

His hands find their way to John’s hips, as though to hold him steady, though he’s been doing that perfectly well himself. His little, aborted thrusts are likely a product of the drugs and a solely physical response to the shifting pressure against the skin behind his balls. 

Sherlock is fully hard now, as big as he can get, and John is still clenching and twitching back against him. He notices almost peripherally that they’ve set a tempo between them. In every breath Sherlock takes, John clenches his thigh muscles tighter and releases twice. His thrusts between them are slower, without an established rhythm, but still building a crescendo that shows, already, that it will overwhelm him entirely.

The entirety of Sherlock’s capacity for conscious thought narrows to his cock and the tightening pull drawing up his testicles. 

He thrusts, unthinking, with such force that John’s elbows bend further, shoving him toward the wall in a way that registers in Sherlock’s hind-brain as being necessarily uncomfortable before he can put words to the thought. Instinctively, he moves a hand around to John’s abdomen to pull him back, flush against Sherlock’s body. 

With a grunt, John is forced back-to-chest against Sherlock. With another, Sherlock discovers that John’s cock is hard and full enough to bounce against the back of Sherlock’s knuckles with their movement. 

Sherlock’s brain short-circuits. 

John’s cock is there, so he grabs it.

John gasps. John says “Fuck.” John does not say “Stop.” John does not sound like _stop_.

John loses the pace of the pattern in which he had been clenching his thighs and begins to thrust back against him and forward into Sherlock’s hand erratically.

Sherlock loses himself in the face of John’s mindless abandon. He is giving John pleasure, and John is taking it, and the movement of his body, imprecise and uninhibited, pulls Sherlock over the edge. 

The hand on John’s hip pulls him tight against Sherlock as he comes, thrusting even as he makes a mess of John’s thighs. Sherlock squeezes the hand around John’s cock tight, perhaps purposefully so, Sherlock is too far gone to tell. 

John tilts his head back, pressing against Sherlock’s shoulder and neck with a breathy whine that mixes with Sherlock’s own groan. A part of him, almost divorced in the immediate comedown, knows that this is an important sound to remember, that he will think of it when he grips himself later, no matter how guilty he may feel afterward. 

He collapses on top of John, who has been pulled around enough that he can’t sufficiently brace himself against the wall and lands heaped on the floor with him.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock says again. It’s probably the most he has ever apologised in one day. He’s not sure he means it.

He moves before anyone can comment.

It might be necessary. If it is necessary, then his hands might be enough. But he has an opportunity to do it. He has wanted to do it. 

There is deniability, still, and it’s plausible enough to hold up if everyone refrains from questioning it.

He thinks there’s a saying about blowjobs being the best apology.

“Let me,” he says, although his hands are already on John’s cock again and he’s clambered over their mess of limbs to push John’s legs apart and kneel between them.

He runs his fingers over a streak of his own semen, lifting it from John’s thigh before wrapping that hand around John’s cock. 

John’s legs fall open further. Sherlock doesn’t think it’s entirely shock.

He stares, for a moment, down at the mess he’s made on John’s thighs, and at John’s prick, hard and heavy and wrapped in his hands. He moves the hand that doesn’t yet have semen on it to the floor, to better ensure his balance. He looks up to John’s face for just a moment. His cheeks are flushed; his mouth is open.

Sherlock avoids his eyes. 

Sherlock can’t do exactly what he’s thought of. He can’t kiss John’s thighs or lightly nip at the crease where leg meets body, or suck and lick at skin too high to be directly relevant. He would have no excuse to seek out erogenous zones. But he can do this. He was told the act of love. Lovemaking means reciprocity, he is reasonably sure.

He hasn’t been stopped yet. 

He moves his hand over John’s shaft, and this time, when he swallows, his mouth does not feel too dry. 

He lowers his lips to John’s cock and slides them, as he strokes, just over the head. He lets himself taste, as he has fantasised about doing so many times. His nose is full of the scent of arousal and his mouth is simply full.

He curls his tongue and lowers his head to take slightly more, then pulls back in discomfort and licks to regain his bearings. He circles the head with his lips again and gives a light suck, unembarrassed by how wet he’s allowing his hand to become. 

John seems to be enjoying it, in any case. He can already taste bitter precome against his tongue.

He shifts, moving his balance from his palm to his elbows, and brings his now free hand up to cup John’s balls. The skin behind them probably still carries some of his own come, so he pushes his fingers up to check. 

John jumps, pressing up into his mouth and only managing not to gag him by virtue of having to press past Sherlock’s hand on a downward stroke of his shaft.

Sherlock flicks his eyes up to read John’s face, and their gazes meet.

He doesn’t look away when John begins to pulse in his mouth. He does his best to make it good, sucking and moving his hands.

He pulls off when the discomfort of overstimulation starts to show in the creases around John’s eyes. 

They stare, and Sherlock doesn’t know what to expect. After what may be a moment or an eternity, John raises his hand and brings it toward Sherlock’s face. He doesn’t prepare for a blow. If he gets one, he’ll take it without flinching. 

But violence doesn’t seem to be at hand. John doesn’t break eye contact as he slowly draws a finger up along Sherlock’s chin to the corner of his lips.

Sherlock opens on autopilot and realizes, as John’s finger pushes the fluid back into his mouth, that he’s been drooling come.

He doesn’t feel his face change, but it must, because John looks down and away. 

Then his gaze skitters over to Mycroft. Sherlock’s follows. 

Mycroft is watching them as commanded, his mind present, though likely curled up as tightly as his body. His face is red and his glare, momentarily, flicks over to the screen showing Eurus.

She looks discontented. Not angry, not disappointed, but as though, perhaps, something hasn’t gone exactly to plan.

“Fine,” she says suddenly, as though noticing all eyes are on her. “Very good. Lovely show; fascinating response. Your infant is safe. You get to talk to the girl on the plane.”

She tilts her head. 

“Do you want to make a deal, Sherlock? You get two minutes with her when you move to the next room. I won’t interrupt. If you can get Mycroft to stick his tongue past your teeth before you move on, you get five.”

Sherlock hears Mycroft’s noise of distress at the word teeth. 

He doesn’t see how it’s even a question. Eurus wants to see him kiss his brother, that much is obvious. They could obey the letter of the command without the spirit. He’s had worse things in his mouth, after all. A plane headed toward a city? Three minutes for something so insubstantial? Of course he’ll do it.

His brother is a pragmatist; he’ll probably insist on it.

Sherlock lifts himself off the floor while John continues to look anywhere but at him. His chest feels tight as he watches John avoid his gaze, but there’s nothing for it. He steps over to the pile of his clothes and begins to dress.

He hears John start to do the same. The pressure on his chest increases, as though he’s trying to breathe in the grip of a boa constrictor. 

He feels filthy: the sweat drying on his skin, the come smeared over his penis. It must be worse for John. 

He crouches to tie his shoe, and almost chokes on something he hadn’t realized he was starting to say.

“John, is –” he starts, and realizes he hadn’t planned beyond that. 

John continues to button his trousers.

“It’s,” Sherlock says as he stands, as though to fill the silence. He has nothing to continue with.

“It’s fine,” John says, looking up in an apparent attempt to make eye contact with the wall just over Sherlock’s left shoulder. “Right?” his voice raises slightly too high on the end of the question. “You do what you have to. You move on.”

“Right,” Sherlock affirms. It’s the best, he suspects, they can do right now. 

“Stand up,” he says to Mycroft, who hesitates, but shows that he is, in fact, capable of doing as Sherlock says. 

Sherlock strides over and opens his mouth wide. Mycroft, who probably had the idea before he did, leans in just close enough, then tilts his head and sticks his tongue out to the centre of Sherlock’s mouth, just between his teeth. It is uncomfortably close, and they remain in proximity for only three-point-four-two seconds before pulling back, but it meets the letter of the demand.

“No,” Eurus says, as though reading his mind. “That doesn’t count. Do it properly.”

“We did exactly what you speci–” Mycroft starts. Sherlock does not have the patience for it. Sherlock can’t refrain from doing this when he has already done so much to John.

Sherlock grabs his brother by the neck and pulls his head close. When Mycroft tries to pull back, he presses his whole body close. 

Whether due to shock or acceptance of the path of least resistance, Mycroft opens his mouth.

Sherlock is not good at kissing, he knows, but Mycroft moves as if by instinct. In a moment there is a tongue past his lips, past his teeth, pressing against his own, and then it retreats. He’s left with the faint taste of stale bile and an internal experience it takes him a moment to identify as emotional discomfort.

Mycroft’s hands very firmly remove Sherlock’s grip on him and he steps aside. Sherlock processes the sensation of his brother’s body separating from his own retroactively, caught in a moment of realization that he’d had his leg pressed between Mycroft’s and felt neither any lingering signs of arousal nor a telling wet spot. 

It’s good, obviously, but all of the drinks would have had to contain the same substance in the same amount – Eurus couldn’t have predicted who would take which, no matter how clever she is – and while Sherlock isn’t surprised by how he’d reacted, John had certainly reacted with more abandon than he would have expected if given a negligible dose. And if Mycroft ingested the same substance and suffered no reaction then – 

“Very good,” Eurus says again, more sharply this time. “Jim would have loved to see that. Poor thing.”

Sherlock is sure, at this point, that Eurus doesn’t understand the concept of poor things. It’s all just words in the right order; that’s all they need.

He takes a step back himself. Mycroft is very clearly trying to rub whatever bacteria he thinks he’s picked up from Sherlock off of his tongue against the roof of his mouth and glancing at John. 

John is staring at the table, then his hands, then his shoes, then the screen. He must feel Sherlock’s gaze on him because he does look over after a moment.

A nod, quick, is all Sherlock gets, but John’s eyes are steady. It is a comfort. Sherlock lets himself breathe.

Another door slides open, and Sherlock prepares to move on.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
